Stain Basics for Church Pews

After you’ve decided on a church pew style and fabric for your church pew seats, the next step is to choose what color stain you’d like for the exposed wood of the church pews. We have a wide range of stain colors at Born Again Pews, but how do you know how to choose the right one? First, you need to understand the nature of a stain and how it differs from paint.

Stains are made of tiny particles of color suspended in solvents and binders. The difference between a stain and paint is that a stain lets the details of the wood show through. For instance, the white paint we use on our church pews covers up the woodgrain so you can’t see the lines in the wood. Paint provides full coverage with no transparency, and gives a new color to the pews. Stain, however, is absorbed into the grain of the wood. Stains, unlike paint, can’t easily be removed because they become part of the wood. While you can scrape paint off, you can’t do so with a stain.

Stains offer some protection from the elements, and they also give a natural look that makes the most of the beauty of the wood — while also allowing your new pews to match or with other colors in your sanctuary. We use solid oak to build our church pews, so they might clash with a dark cherry or redwood interior. Stains can make sure the new church furniture suits your sanctuary, while still allowing the beautiful grain of the wood to show through.

We use a high quality brand named Minwax for all our stains because we know it’s a great stain that will last decades. It also makes it easy to match stains. You can simply go to your local hardware store and find the shade of Minwax that most nearly matches your existing wood features or furniture and tell us the number, so you’ll be assured of a good match.

If you’d prefer that your new furniture coordinate rather than trying to achieve an exact match, or if you want to choose the right shade to work with your upholstery or stained glass, the most important aspect of the color is whether it’s warm or cool.

Warm colors include yellow, orange, and red. Many woods, including oak and pine, have warm tones. Cool tones are blue, green, and purple. Fewer woods have cool tones, but rosewood, weathered gray shades and some walnut shades that are examples of woods that are cool rather than warm.

If you’re uncertain, call us and we will be glad to help you with your decision.